More on Feist, Leclerc and France

Christopher M. Jones describes Felix Leclerc in Paris in 1974:

Felix Leclerc was the authentic Quebecois--with acoustic guitar, boots, and flannel shirts on stage at the Olympia in Paris--seemingly just emerged from the woods, representing the origin myth, an unspoiled New World Man.

In an interesting twist, Jones suggests that, with few exceptions of what he calls "crossover" artists, Quebec music has not been embraced in France, nor have French artists been embraced in Quebec (he quotes Gilbert Ohayon of EMI France to support this). So, Perhaps Leclerc was seen as an Other, a kind of "exotic" or something. In a way, perhaps Feist is seen in a similar way, but where Leclerc was linked to a Quebec "nationalism," Feist is linked to ... nothing.

Source: Christopher M. Jones, "Quebec Song: Strategies in the Cultural Marketplace," Quebec Studies 31 (Spring-Summer 2001), 50-60. Also available here.